Adventures of a Laura: September 2021

We’re in! Took us four trips with the big van, some boxes in Poppa B’s car, and the work stuff in my little van. The garden took one and half big vans… but we got the van at 8am on Wednesday and returned it midday on Thursday, so we didn't do bad.

Full disclaimer: I am writing this whilst tired so it might end up full of typos. Also it is very photo heavy so may take some time to load!!

The house is gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. The ceilings are super high, the rooms are really bright light and airy, the toads are friendly, and we’re slowly making a dent in the daddy long legs population.

It is so peaceful here. SO peaceful. Words can’t really describe just how quiet it is. The only traffic noise is steam trains. We sat down to dinner the other week and a hot air balloon drifted past. A WW2 plane has been over.

We love it.

I have made a start on faffing around outdoors and starting the garden. We have strimmed and trimmed and mowed, and I have grand plans to lay the hedge. We have been for a bit of an explore and found the quarry that built our house. We have more land than we thought which is nice. The garden is huge – 30 paces long by 15 paces wide at its widest. The narrowest part is maybe 5 paces, it tapers. But still huge. Probably 6 or 7 times bigger than our old garden. And a complete blank canvas. I have submitted my plans to the new landlord to quantify what I can and can’t do here. Apparently they are quite particular about the outward appearances of their properties so there may well be a lot of restrictions for the garden. Also the garden floods every year so I will have to rethink my cottage garden plans.

We have a bat roost in the eaves – possibly more than one given that the house is 160yrs old – so that’s exciting. I have signed up to become a bat roost volunteer but haven’t read the paperwork yet.

The local farm has pheasant shooting rights so starting in a few weeks there will be a shoot. The birds have been released already. October to February apparently. Could make working from home interesting.

We have had our first delivery van issue. The issue being that the driver was a knobhead and wouldn’t take advice from two women and it ended up with his van being pulled out by a tractor – also driven by a woman.

I have decided that a new house officially needs a new blanket but I haven’t started one yet. I have an urge to make lots of little pumpkins first for ~décor~. And maybe some Halloween gonks.

Wildlife so far:

· Kestrel

· Buzzard

· Scorpion fly

· Grass hopper

· Toad

· Mice

· Bat

· Frog

· Sheep

· Huge worms

· Great spotted woodpecker

· Blue tit

· Robin

· Great tit

· Black ground beetle

· A greeny-bronze ground beetle

· Loads of types of hoverflies

· Wasps

· European hornet – just the one tho, no signs of a nest

· Bush cricket

· Grass snake

· Slow worm

· Red ants – guess who put her yoga mat on top of the nest

· Dragonfly

· Garden spider

I have started hand writing a journal – I KNOW – using a fountain pen with purple ink. Hand writing stuff HURTS. My thumb is going to be so muscly.

Every morning we like to sit with the lounge window wide open so we can hear the birds. The blue tits like to play in the two shrubs either side of the window and sometimes sit on top of the open window. They haven’t come in yet, but they’re getting closer.

We have ventured out for takeaway and got fish & chips. You can just about see our house from the chippy.

I have been drying my herbs to make my own mixed herbs. I use a lot of dried herbs in cooking but I haven’t ever dried my own, and I grow a lot but never use them. I tend to grow them because I like fondling them and sniffing, but they’re also really good for wildlife especially bees. But now I’ve decided to try and live a slower life, so I want to dry my own to use.

The electricity bill came in for the two weeks before we moved in and it says the estimated annual electricity cost is TEN THOUSAND POUNDS. £10,048 to be exact. So I phoned E-On and was like what in the actual fuckery???!!!!! So I’ve got to phone them back in October with new meter readings and then try and get a smart meter installed. But we might have to rethink the use of storage space heaters, otherwise we might end up rethinking this house. There is no gas supply here, everything is electric. We have a log burner downstairs but the ceilings are super high so I need to look at a fan thing to blow the heat around instead of letting it all go up. Also need to get the chimney swept soon. We have an immersion heater for hot water that we can only schedule to come on once a day, so I might start doing the washing up in the shower because it’s an electric shower that heats on demand. We are also on a septic system so we can no longer flush weewee, which is a good thing. It takes about 4 litres of water to flush wee, so it's a huge waste. I was trying to get David to stop flushing pee in the last house but it didn't work, but so far we are doing well. Might embroider a sign to hang by the loo so guests (when we eventually have some) also only flush the poop.

I am going to have to replace most of my baking stuff as it is too wide for the new oven. First option is to try and bend up the sides but if that doesn’t work I’ll have to invest in some new trays. Such a shame. Nothing I hate more than shopping for kitchen things……

We have to walk the bins to the main road for collection, it is 1/3 of a mile one way which means I’ll finally be getting some exercise, so that’s good. I took the green bin last weekend, and on the way back managed to sign myself up to the local conservation group, so looks like I’ll be starting volunteering soon too. Think I’m only going to do one day every six weeks or so when they’re in the woods behind the house and I can walk to it. It’ll be nice to be part of a conservation group again but not be in charge, not be responsible, not have to think about welfare and risk assessments and medical issues and safety and logistics and keeping people entertained. And it’d be good to keep my skills up too – I trained in conservation but I don’t really work in it anymore, and I’d like to gradually head back towards it I think.

So we have been here for just over two weeks now. We only got the internet turned on last week and honestly it’s been really nice not having it. I know David wouldn’t agree but we’re both on unlimited data plans so we could have got by without it a bit longer. But it would make working from home difficult. Swings n roundabouts I guess.

Hopefully the next blog will be a garden update but I don’t want to do much to it yet until I’ve got permission etc from the landlord. We’ll see.

Pics from the old house: